


Fragments

by Helloleonardmccoy



Category: Star Trek
Genre: I read a thing so I did a thing, Sad, hope person doesn't mind, just wanted to, sorry it sucks, was not asked to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:25:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8166689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helloleonardmccoy/pseuds/Helloleonardmccoy
Summary: There was a post floating around tumblr and I wanted to do it, though I probably should have asked first. If the original person who wrote the post wants me to take this down just contact me at tumblr: obsidianbutterflysuckit.
http://ifeelbetterer.tumblr.com/post/73334924734/sometimes-communications-officers-pick-up-old
#sometimes communications officers pick up old transmissions#fragments of status reports lost in subspace#distress signals from ships far beyond any kind of help#as a general rule comm officers don’t log every transmission that passes through their consoles#that would be impossible#but recording these signals is a tradition dating back to the earliest days of interstellar flight#some of them are nearly as old as that#usually all that’s left is audio but once in a while there are images#badly distorted and barely visible#on slow nights when uhura has pulled the late shift she sifts through the recordings#she’s not sure why#it’s just that it seems wrong to let them go unheard (fragmentsshoredagainstmyruin)





	

Sometimes late at night, when she cant sleep, she goes back to the comm room and listens to the old transmissions floating through space with no destination now that they are no longer urgent. No one on the other end to hear them anymore and likely the people that sent them long gone also. Most of the time its just reports on missions, not terribly important ones but she still finds herself fascinated with them. Details of new alien races that have been discovered, planets that seem inhabitable and end up looking like a jungle has taken over, or her favorite planet where there are birds singing in melodies that sound like any song ever created. The landing party had found out that the birds pick them up from whatever being is near them and ended up singing them out. That one she had to share with everyone on the morning shift. Most of the songs they had picked out were old earth songs from the twenty first century but there were some Vulcan which surprised Spock who decided to listen to the recording on most of his down time. 

She smiled fondly, thinking of that, while she gripped her coffee and turned on the transmission receiver. Not all of transmissions were good ones though. Those that she got late in the night, distress signals calling out for help, were the ones that ended up plaguing her dreams. Starships under attack by enemies that never receive the help they desperately need. System failures that leave ships stranded in the middle of space with no hope in sight, just the empty blackness as company. Or the one that she couldn't stop thinking about.

There had been a transmission that she had received late at night that she had thought to be current. She had even woke up Kirk to try to get help and he had sadly shook his head at her, making her read an old news article showing the outcome she had feared. The ship had been circling a mining planet, father out from its mother planet, that had been in diplomacy talks with the federation. They found contention at the point of their workers. The federation absolutely forbid child work, and had child work laws in place that made it illegal for any planet in the federation to make children work in the horrible situation the planet was doing. The mother planet sent children from ages eight to seventeen to go work and live on the mining planet until they deemed their time up and then they got to start their new lives on the mother planet. They saw no problem with this as they had been doing it for generations and considered it paying their dues. But that wasn't what the distress signal was about. They had been mining too deep and come close to the planets core and one of the machines caused a melt down type of eruption. The planet was going critical, about to implode, and there was not enough space on the ship circling the planet to get everyone out. The article that Kirk had her read showed her worse fear, that millions had died on the planet and no one from the home planet the children had been from had sent help. The federation had no jurisdiction to take actions against the planet since they had refused to sign the treaties and there was nothing to be done other than stop all trades with the planet and put them in isolation. She could still see the smiling faces of children melting and burning when she closed her eyes.

But even with these terrible transmissions coming through that were sure to plague her for the rest of her life, she still listened late at night to the voices coming over the machine. She wasn't the only one to do it, all of the communications team listened and took shifts, but they weren't ordered to. No they felt it their duty to sit there and listen to what sometimes ended up being peoples last moments. They felt it their duty to sit there and mourn for these people, lost in space trying to do their duties just like the people that ended up receiving the transmissions were. They just hoped that if the same fate ever fell to them, that there would be someone out their listening to their final moments and grieving with them and their families. Giving their final moments the respect they needed, the respect they deserved.

Nyota clutched her coffee and typed on the computer to bring up the static at the start of the transmission. She took a sip as the sound started, it was going to be a long night.

**Author's Note:**

> Music listened to:  
> Placebo- Commercial For Levi  
> Gary Jules- Mad World  
> Raidohead- Fake Plastic Trees  
> Melanie Martinez- Carousel  
> Zella Day- Hypnotic  
> x ambassadors- unsteady


End file.
